If you would've told Percy Jackson a year ago he wasn't the only prophecized demigod with the weight of the world on his shoulders, he would've been elated.
Yet now, it was his only and dearest wish.
When Percy Jackson, (in)famous Son of Poseidon...
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˚ ✦ . . ˚ . . ✦ ˚ . ★⋆.
AS MUCH AS THE ORACLE AND THE ATTIC creeped the life out of him, he stayed there with Menodora until she simmered down. He sat close enough to her, allowing their arms to brush against eachother, letting her know she had a shoulder to cry on. Which she didn't do, but that was alright.
Percy couldn't lie to himself and say that what Menodora had said hadn't freaked him out. People were going to go. Percy was going to go, and so was Menodora herself.
It had taken Percy vast amounts of self control to not ask Menodora what she had seen in more detail. She was already messed up enough by experiencing it once, Percy wasn't going to let her go through it for a second time.
The longer he sat next to Menodora, the less scary the attic appeared. This place somehow felt like their communal home away from home (although he doubted he'd willingly come back to the attic alone), somewhere Thalia and Mr. D could never come. Dust collected in their hair, and their breathing synchronised.
He felt like he was floating in outer space, somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. He wondered if that's what normal people felt like in the deep, restless waters.
He was supposed to choke and be anxious, only it was Menodora's protecting bubble that kept the pressure from bursting his every cell. It was her simple presence that didn't make him jump at every sound that echoed through the attic, it was the simple touch of her skin on his that allowed him to drop his guard for a precious moment.
It was foreign to Percy to feel this comfortable around someone so rapidly. For as long as he could remember, he had always been the outsider, always the troubled kid, always someone no one wanted to deal with.
No one ever looked at him and thought, Hey, I'd like for him to be my friend. Maybe they thought it, but no one ever cared enough to show it. That wasn't the case with Menodora. Back at Westover Hall, she could have very well given Percy as bait and run off with the di Angelos. Instead she risked her life for him, a boy she barely knew. It had felt weirdly comforting to be the protected one for a change.
There was Grover, of course. He was Percy's official protector and only friend at his old school, but that was simply because he was sent to scout demigods, which Percy happened to be. It could've been any other centaur. Their friendship wasn't meant to be, it was forced to be.
The day he heard Grover talking with his former teacher, Mr. Brunner (turned out to be Chiron) about Percy and about his situation, his heart broke. Percy had suspected Mr. Brunner had been paying Grover to hang out with Percy. It got him so upset that even Sally Jackson's legendary blue cookies didn't help with the sadness.
